The present invention relates generally to positions, or postures, and motions of human body parts and other devices. More particularly, the present invention relates to a process for accommodating, improving, imitating or transmuting random static and dynamic human functions relative to an object, such as a human body-part or mechanical part.
No human is completely independent in all activities. People may or may not require assistance to execute a task. As such, a person s functional status is said to be independent if no assistance is required, assisted if partial assistance is required, and dependent if complete assistance is required to execute a given task. Therefore, a person may require no assistance or full and complete assistance, depending on the person and the specific task under consideration.
Assistance, as applied here, relates to any form of support which permits task execution. Physical assistance, in the form of extrinsic force, is the most common form of assistance required to execute a task. Extrinsic force is typically provided by another person or a device. As such, assisted or dependent individuals utilize assistance devices or the physical efforts of an assistant to execute certain tasks.
The functional status of and individual changes from the beginning to the end of life. In general, independence is gained as life waxes and is lost as life wanes. Largely dependent at birth, assistances are weaned from individuals as intrinsic efforts and abilities emerge. Accordingly, fortunes vary in terms of a person s ability to attain, maintain, and sustain independence in sorted life skills.
In our society, medicine and specifically the field of physical medicine and rehabilitation, is the profession charged with the purpose of assisting individuals to attain and regain functional independence in life skills. Many medical specialties are biased. toward providing chemicals only in attempts to optimize function, whereas physical medicine and rehabilitation more holistically stresses chemical, cognitive, spiritual, and especially physical approaches to augment function.
Physical approaches seek to affect the body mechanically. Biomechanics as a discipline seeks to describe the body in physical terms. Taken together, biomechanics and physical approaches represent the theory and application of physical forces relating to body positioning and change in positioning, or motions.
The individual s functional status determines the physical approaches offered. Dependent and assisted individuals require physical assistance in the form of passive and assistive manual approaches, whereas independent individuals execute activities, or exercises, without assistance and may resist extrinsic forces, or loads, to varying degrees.
Passive, assistive, active and resistive are terms used to describe the degree an individual participates in the effort of an activity. Resisted motions require significant intrinsic forces which surpass progressive load demands of a task. Active motions are completed independently by intrinsic forces alone, without additional resistance. Assisted motions cannot occur unless some percentage of extrinsic force is provided in addition to intrinsic force. Passive motions require extrinsic force alone, without intrinsic force. In this way, there exists a continuum of physical activity from passive to resistive, and a similar continuum of functioning from, say, the disabled individual to an elite athlete. Normal functioning lies somewhere in-between.
Therapeutic approaches aim to normalize the disabled whereas performance approaches aim to athleticize the normal. All physical approaches aim to optimize physical and functional capabilities. Physical approaches consist of exercises and manual approaches, the former prescribed as active and resistive approaches, and the latter prescribed as passive and assistive approaches, typically provided by an assistant. The existence of the assistant during manual approaches complicates the measurement of the physical forces involved, as well as efforts to standardize the application of those forces.
Accordingly, establishing validity and reliability for manual approaches has suffered in comparison to exercises, which accounts for the stigma attached to manual approaches in the Western Medical Model. A means to objectify the processes involved in manual approaches is currently lacking. Such a means would not only serve as a model for the application of manual approaches, it may also allow individuals to achieve independence sooner in the process of their rehabilitation.
In certain circumstances where an individual requires assistance, an assistive device may substitute for the assistant in order to allow independence. Using an assistive device to accomplish a goal instead of a person allows greater control of the physical forces involved, both for individuals and for researchers. The benefit of manual approaches largely rests in the extrinsic physical forces which unweigh the limb, and the benefit of exercises largely rests in the intrinsic physical forces which add resistance or rate to the limb. Each provide stabilization or motion, as desired.
Accordingly, there is a need for an assistive device capable of allowing assisted or resisted postures or motions, while either increasing or decreasing the effort required to achieve the activity. A device capable of interfacing with humans in this way may ultimately be programmed to move independently in relation to human motions, or alternatively, apart from human motion altogether, as with robotics for instance. The present invention fulfills these needs and provides other related advantages.